COMOX - A 12-year-old Vancouver Island girl was rescued from an underground bank vault earlier this week after a game of hide-and-seek went terribly wrong.

Firefighters, police officers, locksmiths, city workers and even former bank employees came together Tuesday night to help the young girl.

The drama unfolded in the basement of a Chinese restaurant in Courtenay, which had been a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada until the mid-’70s.

The fortified, century-old vault — which measures about 15 feet by 12 feet and is accessed down a steep set of stairs — was used in recent years as a storage room by the restaurant. But the heavily armoured door still had two locks, both of which turned out to be active despite being unused for nearly 40 years.

During a playful game of hide-and-seek, the girl went into the vault and the door got locked — and with no one knowing the combinations that could get her out, her older sister called 911.

Fire, police and ambulance services were alerted, who then called a local locksmith to see if they could get the door open.

Troy Atchison, branch manager at Price’s Locks, said they had been unaware the building contained an old bank vault, but immediately set to work trying to unlock it.

“There were two locks,” Atchison said. “The bottom one we were able to open using a combination, but there was no combination for the top lock of the vault. We initially tried a series of generic combinations, but without success.”

Meanwhile, calls were made to try to find anyone who once worked at the bank who might have any recollection or record of what combinations might have been used, but to no avail.

City operations staff were alerted to the crisis and called to the scene with tools including a jackhammer, compressor, a snakelike sewer inspection camera and monitoring equipment.

Traffic diversions were put in place.

“The next step was to drill a small hole through the concrete and the sewer camera was passed through to see if the child was OK and allow air into the vault,” Atchison explained.

They got the girl to point the camera at the back of the door, and after viewing the images on the monitor, they thought they had found a way to resolve the problem.

“Using the camera we determined we could open the lock from the back,” said Atchison.

Such a move required one screw to be removed from the back plate of the lock so they could see the mechanism and give instructions to the trapped girl on the next steps.

“We passed a screwdriver through, but unfortunately she was not strong enough to unscrew the back plate of the lock and was getting frustrated.”

Courtenay’s deputy fire chief, Kurt Macdonald, said the locksmiths worked hard and fast, but after the problems with the screw, their options were running out.

The decision was made to break through the concrete side of the vault, creating a hole big enough to haul the girl to safety.

A face mask was passed through to the child, who was told to get as far away from the wall as she could. She was ordered to crouch down to try to protect herself from any debris and cover her ears against the intense noise of jackhammering.

Firefighters and city workers took turns before finally getting through the 14-inch subterranean wall.

“We used a 90-lb. jackhammer and when we came out it looked as though we had all been in a flour storm,” Macdonald said.

It was a relief the task had not been to break through a newer bank vault, he added. He believed the walls of those are a sandwich of steel inside concrete to hinder access.

The girl — who is not being identified — was shaken but physically uninjured. She had a reasonable night’s sleep and was at school again the next day.

Her family said they were relieved and grateful for all the efforts made by those involved in the rescue and the successful outcome.

The same thing will never happen again at that location, as Price’s Locks will be decommissioning both locks without charge.

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